Bringing Turtles Back to Life Ap Bio

Bringing Turtles Back to Life!

        Both Giant tortoise species, the Floreana and Pinta have been officially been dubbed as extent as the last know Pinta tortoise (named Lonesome George) died in 2012, marking the extinction of the species. This was sadly not the first of the giant tortoise species to die out, being the 4th of the 12 known Giant tortoises to go extinct due to human populations. To this day only 10% of the original Galapogeos Giant Tortoise species in general are still alive, and worse than that the amount of children per adult is less than 1 meaning that the species as a whole are still having their numbers decreased. If something to counteract this mass extinction is not done than all of the giant tortoise species will be erased of the earth.

   There was really no hope for the already extinct species until a male tortoise known as H-2 was discovered on the Galápagos’ Floreana Island. This turtle has strong genetic traits with that of both the Floreana and the Pinta. H-2 is believed to be a direct hybrid of Floreana and Pinta. The question mainly posed in the article is how to bring the extinct species back from the dead.

        Scientists spent over 500,000$ in the Galapagos Islands trying to discover more of these tortoises who share direct traits or genes with those of the recently extinct species.  After months the scientists found a little over 30 tortoises in which shared genetic material (hybrids) with the extinct species. They have taken the species in and are comparing their DNA with those of the extinct species to find the closest relative to the dead species. They have now found the tortoises that most closely relate to old species and have started breeding the H-2 tortoise and her together in hopes that after multiple generations the recessive traits for the extinct turtles will eventually beat out the dominant Giant Tortoise gene. The scientists performing these experiments believe that within 200 to 300 years they will have a hybrid that is more closely related to the extinct species than the actual species its hails from, in return brining the species back to life. These scientists are already off to a start having already breed H-2 with one of the 30+ tortoises taken from the islands.